Mum discovers her ‘dead’ baby ALIVE when she recognises her dimples at a birthday party six years after house fire she was told killed her

A STUNNED mum discovered her baby was alive when she recognised her dimples - six years after being told she died in a house fire.

Luz Cuevas was so convinced the young girl was her daughter Delimar Vera she called her over claiming she had bubblegum in her hair so she could take a strand for DNA testing.

The mum had never believed her ten-day-old baby was killed in the blaze at her home in Philadelphia in 1997.

The tot had been sleeping in the upstairs front bedroom when a fire broke out but the cot was empty when Luz ran into the room.

Luz suffered burns on her face before becoming overcome by smoke and screamed at firefighters that her baby was stolen.

Cuevas said several things made her suspicious.

"I went inside the room and looked in the crib and she wasn't there," she said.

She added that the the window was inexplicably open though it was a cold winter evening.

But her fears were dismissed as "nerves" - with cops concluding the baby's remains had been incinterated in the flames.

Six years later, Luz was at a party when she saw a dark-haired girl called Aaliyah  Hernandez with unmistakable dimples.

Luz used a cop trick she learnt on TV and offered to fix the girl's hair for her - quickly pulling out several strands to send for testing.

Tests proved her mother's instinct was right and the girl was the baby she was told had perished in the house fire.

But Luz still had to prove her case and turned to local politician Angel Cruz for help to get her daughter back.

The woman claiming to be Delimar Vera's mother was Luz's cousin by marriage Carolyn Correa.

The state representative listened to her story for an hour and a half but instinctively believed she was telling the truth.

He called the police and Correa herself was given a DNA test that showed that Aaliyah Hernandez was indeed Delimar.

After a second DNA sample, the child was taken away from her and she was arrested.

Chillingly, Delimar Vera had been kidnapped by Correa, who set the fire to cover her tracks

Correa is understood to have taken the child to live with her in New Jersey - raising her as her own.

Delimar screamed and wailed when she was first separated from Correa and placed in a foster home.

But when she first formally met her real mother, lawyers reported that the child hid under a table and popped up shouting, "Surprise".

When asked by Cuevas, "Do you know who I am?" the little girl replied, "You are my mother".

Correa as charged with kidnapping, arson, assault, concealing the whereabouts of a child and interfering with the custody of a child and has now been jailed for between nine and 30 years.

Delimar said she is "happy" to be back at her "real home" with Luz.